Glue
by Verbal Kint10
Summary: House, Wilson, Foreman, and Chase get locked in the janitor's closet. What ensues are recounts of the four's most embarrassing and most influential moments.
1. Locked In

**Chapter One: Locked In**

It's 1PM when Chase finds House in the janitor's closet.

He opens his mouth to ask _why_ exactly his boss has taken up residence in the 3rd floor janitor's closet, and then promptly closes it, watching a bottle of Pine-Sol slowly empty onto House's 120 dollar sneakers. House doesn't seem to notice as he digs fervently through a large trashcan in the center of the closet, knocking over nearby brooms and assorted cleaning products when they impede on his "mission."

Chase opens his mouth once more after the Windex spatters House's jeans.

"What are you doing?"

House looks up, not unlike a large and possibly radioactive rodent in most respects. He sticks his head back in the garbage and after a minute, his disembodied voice responds from the depths of the black plastic bag.

"Dumpster diving."

"For…kicks?" says Chase, not quite venturing into the closet.

"A matter of business, actually."

Chase nods to himself, repeating the words soundlessly. "Wait, what?"

House lifts his head up again, proudly displaying the bit of spaghetti that's somehow looped its way around his ear.

"Well," he says, "a nurse gave me ten bucks to get a piece of your chewed gum. Something about a shrine." He smiles innocently. "Trust me, it's not half as bad as what they made me find last week."

"You're…kidding, right?'

"Yeah, it's actually Foreman who's making the shrine."

Chase laughs in a somewhat pitiful attempt to be included in his own joke. He says, "Well, Foreman never did have much luck with the ladies."

"Oh, hi Foreman."

House's eyes lock someplace beyond Chase's head as he speaks. Chase smiles and doesn't budge, determined not to give House the "made you look" satisfaction.

"Hi, House."

Chase's eyes widen to a degree previously considered impossible.

He turns his head slowly, as if maybe by the time his eyes react to Foreman's voice, Foreman'll be long gone. It's a charming notion, if completely idiotic.

Chase's eyes meet Foreman's in some kind of unintentional stare-down—on Chase's part, that is. Foreman would be perfectly content to glare at the back of Chase's head.

"Hey, Foreman," says Chase, a guilty quiver on his voice, "we were just—"

"Discussing your love life," House finishes, "or lack there of."

"Thanks for your concern," says Foreman.

Foreman watches House next to Chase and smiles, his memory of their latest "discussion" quickly drifting away. House's current misadventure seems far more interesting.

House's voice rings out again from his trash-ridden abyss, waves of sarcasm elegantly rolling over his words. "Thanks for helping out, guys. I really, really appreciate it."

"Well maybe we'd be able to help out better," says Chase, "if we had a clue what you're looking for." He takes a few steps toward the closet; Foreman follows.

House removes his head from the trashcan and stares mischievously at Chase and Foreman. He looks around, making sure he hasn't been "caught" before inviting his two fellows in with a nod, his eyes scanning the hallway like vultures for other signs of life.

"Wilson was in his office all morning. Writing notes."

Foreman says, "And?" Chase says, "So?" Combined, it rather sounds like, "Sand?"

House continues with the panache of one practiced in telling scary stories. "He kept throwing the notes away, and since Wilson uses a tape recorder for everything but sex and tennis, it means it was something important. Plus, the notes were on stationary. Nice stationary. He's in love again."

"Or writing Christmas cards," says Chase, unable to contain the eye-roll that's been building up inside of him for the past two minutes.

"It's June."

"Fourth of July cards?"

House grabs his cane from its perch above the doorframe. "He's writing love cards. Or 'please screw me' cards. Question is, to whom?"

A brief silence weaves its way into the closet as Chase indulges himself in another eye roll and Foreman takes another step closer to House.

"So you're in a janitor's closet…looking through Wilson's trash to find the love letters he's supposedly writing in between cases?" Foreman makes no attempt to hide the scorn in his voice.

"Nope," says House, "technically he only _wrote _one love letter. I'm looking for the ones that 'didn't quite do justice' to his lover."

"How do you even know his trash is in here?"

"This janitor…" House indicates the trashcan before them. "He hates his job. Thing he hates most about his job, is taking the garbage out. Weird huh? So every day, about noon, he empties everyone's garbage can—when it's still not full. He takes that garbage in here, stores it, locks the door, and spends most of the day sweeping the same square foot in the cafeteria. Then at night, he takes out the garbage, which is nothing more than coffee cups and love note stationary. People assume he's taking out the whole day's trash, but he doesn't have to smell a thing. He's been working here six months and hasn't been caught. The other janitors pick up his slack."

Chase is a little annoyed at his own growing interest. "Why do they put up with him?"

"He's the bookie for all the bets they place on the NFL."

"So," says Foreman, genuinely trying to sift sense out of the madness, "you watched Wilson's office all morning, then followed the janitor here once he'd picked up Wilson's trash? I thought you said he locked it. How'd you get in?"

"I stuck a bottle of glue in front of the door while he was walking away. The door locks from the outside, which is why we need to keep it open."

And while Chase doesn't roll his eyes this time, the necessary emotions are conveyed through a quick: "You need a new hobby."

"It's not a hobby, Chase." House points to the bottle of Elmer's glue wedge between the door and the wall. "It's a way of life."

House pushes the door open while Chase and Foreman squeeze inside. He makes sure the glue is back in place before letting the door shut with a _thud._

"Good," he says, "let's proceed."

Chase looks around and sees, well, nothing. "It'd probably be a lot easier to 'proceed' if the room weren't pitch black. Can't see a damn thing."

House gives them a sheepish grin, which they'd be able to see…if they could see. "About that…I guess I got carried away looking and, uh, knocked a broom into the light bulb." His last few words are nothing but slurred whispers, like afterthoughts that shouldn't be afterthoughts, such as "I'm pregnant" or "I'm gay."

House is expecting them to walk away. Hell, it's what he would do if he were normal. But Foreman and Chase stay put, too drawn in by House's convoluted explanation of how this all started to stay, and not angry enough at their own curiosity to leave. So, they feel around for the trashcan and start digging for paper that feels pretty, if such a thing were possible.

House pauses after pulling out his third receipt, frowning at his inability to read what exactly it's a receipt for.

He collects little mental images once more of Wilson writing the notes. His long, thoughtful pauses as he considers what to write next, his penmanship's girlish finesse, the disgruntled furrow of eyebrows when he makes a mistake—it had all the signs of love, or lust, or both. Probably lust; it had to be lust. If it was love, then House was wrong, and the prospect of House being wrong is often…wrong.

House hopes he's right. Wilson doesn't need another girlfriend, and House doesn't want another Wilson's girlfriend, and this doesn't strike House as immature, not yet.

However, in the true nature of the thought process, he takes a step back, because House remembers the peculiar way Wilson throws away paper.

Wilson doesn't simply roll it into a ball. After all, that's what the trashcan will be expecting. Wilson needs to surprise the trashcan for reasons yet unknown, so he folds the piece of paper in half. Then and only then, does he roll it into a ball and deposit it into the can. Wilson is the king of unnecessary individualism.

House inserts his hand once more into the forbidden cave that is this morning's garbage. "New plan, troops. Now we're looking for anything that's rolled up into paper balls."

"Everyone crumbles their paper up," says Chase, "we're just going to get 20 pieces of paper that we can't read to begin with."

"It's not the amount of crumbling, soldier. It's how the paper's crumbled." House dawns a southern accent that doesn't quite communicate the drill sergeant part of the joke. He's not sure they would've laughed anyways.

"I assume you at least have an exit strategy if you don't find Wilson's love letters?" says Foreman.

"Well, I'll have you write him love notes and see if we get a response. It's a social experiment, you know, to see how desperate he really is."

"Can't wait." Foreman feigns a smile, which of course, nobody can see. Sarcasm's harder in the dark.

In the hallway, someone's shoes are becoming as obnoxiously loud as Cuddy's. These are men's feet though, painfully apparent from the way they scuff slightly with every step—indication that their owner once knew how to walk properly, but had since fallen out of the habit.

House, Foreman, and Chase freeze like meerkats on alert as the steps come closer and closer.

Then they stop.

That's when Chase sneezes.

Now, exactly why Chase chose that particular moment to sneeze is one of life's great unanswered questions, like why round pizza comes in a square box, or what cheese says when it gets its picture taken.

The only difference is that cheese and round pizza don't make the footsteps come closer. Chase's sneeze does. House finds a foot (possibly Chase's) and stomps a well-placed cane. Hard. Squeals follow, prompting him to say, "Shut up."

"House?"

House cracks the door open just enough to let a face in. "Hi, Wilson, what brings you here?"

"I'd ask you the sa—Foreman, what are you holding?"

The light floods in to the rim of the trashcan as Wilson nudges the door open. All eyes drift to Foreman, who's standing next to the trashcan with a piece of paper—crumpled into a ball, folded in half.

House smiles broadly. "Foreman, hang on to that paper. Wilson, got anything you'd like to tell us?"

Wilson opens the door a little more and begins to work his way into the closet. "Foreman," he says, "could I have that paper? I didn't mean to throw it away, and—"

"You also threw away your good bullshit generator?" House takes a clumsy step back, his shoulders even with Foreman's as Wilson licks his lips nervously.

"I'm just saying—" Wilson lunges forward with the grace of a cheetah (who's been eating too much antelope) and trips...on a bottle of glue precariously placed around his ankles.

The glue breezes across the floor as if participating in a massive Slip n' Slide competition. Wilson gets a hand on spilt Pine-Sol and a face full of garbage on the rebound, attempting to get up while still falling.

This is when the door slams.

This is when the door _that locks from the outside_ slams.

The glue is at Wilson's feet when he opens his eyes to darkness. Thankfully, he can't see all of the scowls pointed in his general direction. Thankfully, House can no longer read his note. Thankfully, those are the only things he can be thankful for…it'd be downright tedious to listen to him go on about pleasantries all day.

Thankfully, Chase is the one to point out: "We're going to be in here for a while, aren't we?"

Everyone's scowl coagulates and freezes to their face, inside the janitor's closet.


	2. Movies

**Chapter Two: Movies**

"Cell phones. Gimme."

House reaches an arm out blindly, expecting his palm to light up at any moment with the blue shimmer of LCD screens. It doesn't.

"What, do you need me to keep talking so you can follow the sound of my voice?" House almost chuckles, mentally picking out blind jokes from his repertoire of insensitivities.

"House…we don't have phones." Chase's voice. The handy thing about being Australian is that you're not American, and pretty much everyone can hear the difference.

"What, you can't afford them? I understand, being a doctor and all, it's so hard to make ends meet."

"We leave them in our lockers," says Foreman's voice. "Like you're supposed to."

House looks around, stunned, like a trout when it realizes it's made a mistake by eating the worm. "So stick them in your pockets or Chase's purse for hot dates, or you know, life-and death situations involving vacuums."

"Yes House, God forbid I miss a text message while doing a brain biopsy." Wilson leans up against the door, nursing two twisted ankles and face full of spaghetti.

"Wilson, I forgot to mention that your right to speak was revoked when you got us locked IN THE DAMN JANITOR'S CLOSET!"

Chase, Foreman, and Wilson sit in silence while House catches his breath.

"Well, where's your phone?" says Chase.

"In my jacket," sighs House, "which is in my office."

Wilson looks up. "So we're stuck."

"I'm sorry, Wilson. Could you say that a bit louder?"

"We stuck. It's my fault. I'm sorry."

It strikes Wilson that he apologizes too often. He'll have to remember to be a bad ass later. He's sorry he can't do it now.

"What about our pagers?" says Chase.

Foreman scratches his head. "I'm _not_ sure one-way pagers are going to be too useful."

"Okay," says House, "start knocking."

Foreman and Chase scramble clumsily over to the door on their hands and knees, which presents a problem for House, as he can't make lewd sexual remarks about possibly sexual situations he can't see. Then they begin to knock.

Except for Wilson, that is, who sits still with his back against the door, subconsciously enjoying the massage created by the knocking and speaking in between Chase and Foreman's open-palmed pounds. "It's. No. Use."

"Why?" says Chase, who continues knocking.

"Everyone's at lunch right now. There's also the fact that people tend to avoid this hallway…" He glares at House in the dark, his eyes probably fiery enough to create light. "…for _some_ reason."

"I know," says House, "Cameron's morning breath."

Foreman keeps pounding away at the door until he comes to a realization, the same realization that hits the others at roughly the same time. "Come to think of it, the only other person I see in this hallway besides us, Cameron, and Cuddy is—"

"Ol' Deaf Jeff" the chorus finishes.

So they sit there, now in the absence of knocking, wishing there were knocking, if only to get their minds off knocking in general.

Chase feigns a yawn because it's almost as self-entertaining as the sound of his own voice. "You think the janitor keeps a Scrabble board in here?"

House scratches his head. "I was going to ask you. Cameron tells me you know your way around a janitor's closet."

Chase can sense Foreman's lips curling into a smile. "Don't ask."

Wilson coughs. Twice. He's now convinced that the awkwardness of a silence increases exponentially with any added participants in the silence. Therefore, if the very slight awkwardness of being alone is represented by the variable _n_, and two people increased it to _n _squared, then the awkwardness the four men now experience is _n _to the 4th power. Although, technically, the limit of awkwardness as _n_ tends to infinity is always going to be infinity, so none of this really matters if one plans on staying in a janitor's closet for a very, very long time.

And now his head hurts.

But they weren't going to be in the janitor's closet that long, were they?

Wilson thinks.

_Lunch, that's what? 45 minutes? People will come back in an hour, tops. We'll bang on the door again then._

He opens his mouth to say this at the same time Chase says, "So what's your favorite movie?"

Wilson uselessly points to himself, still rather foreign to the concept of not seeing and not being seen. "Are you talking to me?"

"Yeah," says Chase, "anyone really. It's not like there's anything else to do."

"Seeing as only one of us has superhuman mind-reading abilities," says House, "I'd recommend referring to the person to whom you're speaking by name, _Dr. Chase_."

"Thank you, _Dr. House_, I'll be sure to do that."

"Great, Dr. Chase. Now please, continue letting Wilson gush over Hitchcock."

House emphasizes a certain syllable of the director's name. He does something similar when talking about Dick Cheney.

"Vertigo," says Wilson, "my favorite movie is Vertigo."

House laughs loudly and deliberately. "Liar."

"What?" Wilson is genuinely taken aback. "I have the poster in my office, House!"

House stares through the darkness at where he supposes Wilson is sitting. "You were drunk. Probably don't remember telling me."

"Telling you what?"

House sighs dramatically and lets his voice rise a few octaves. "Oh Wilson, if he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day!"

Chase snorts. "Wuthering Heights? Your favorite movie is Wuthering Heights?!"

For a moment, Wilson is relieved no one can see the very guilty look on his face. This is when he realizes his silence is equally, if not more so, incriminating.

"I…" He starts. Then stops.

"I think," recalls House, "you described it as 'a work of cinematic love-making that stretches the heart so beyond average human emotion that it's like having sex with Jesus in a non-sexual way.'"

Foreman blinks. "You were _that_ drunk?"

Wilson shrugs. Yet another pointless gesture in the dark.

"So what's your favorite movie?" Wilson quickly adds, "Dr. Chase," for fear of any more drunken secrets spilling out as punishment for not following 'the rules.'

"I'd have to say Trainspotting," says Chase, rather quickly.

Wilson nods silently. Screw the dark.

House frowns. "Interesting," he says.

"Why? It's a brilliant film."

"I know. It's just interesting that while Wilson chose the lie that seemed plausible, you pick the lie that makes us respect your taste in movies and your 'history.'"

"What d'you mean my history?"

"Non heroin addicts don't call movies about heroin addiction their 'favorite movie.' I mean, you can love Darren Aronofsky all you want, but at the end of the day you're always gonna pick Pi over Requiem For A Dream."

Somewhere over to House's right, Foreman and Wilson both sigh.

"So," he continues, "you're lying because your favorite movie doesn't fall into what the modern world would call 'good taste.'"

Chase clears his throat guiltily. "No, it's good…just a bit…odd. It was one of the only movies available to me. It—"

"You were in seminary school for a while weren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Were there…mountains nearby?"

"Uh, no."

"Streams?"

"I don't—"

"Rainbows?"

"Occasionally."

"Dreams?"

Chase groans, flailing his palms and looking rather like Wilson in doing so. But of course, who can tell? "Okay, okay. Yeah."

"Yeah what?" House's mouth twists into a downright wretched smile.

"My favorite movie is The Sound of Music."

"Cute," says Foreman, who, based on his tone, very well might be asleep.

"Thanks," says Chase boldly, "and I suppose you're holding off judgment until they make _Cats _into a movie?"

"I'm actually a big fan of The Shawshank Redemption."

House can feel the suspicious eyes move from Foreman to himself, awaiting a verdict on Foreman's claim. "What?" House says, "I believe him. It's not too black like Get Rich Or Die Tryin,' and it's not too white like...The Crucible. I'd say Morgan Freeman is just the right amount of black."

Foreman frowns confusedly. "Thanks, but—"

"And," House continues, "if you consider Shawshank Prison as a _slightly _harsher version of the hospital, it makes perfect sense. Foreman just needs an escape, fellas."

"What, I—"

"Or maybe the prison is just a metaphor…for your deeply, deeply troubled mind, in which case, the only escape is…" House makes a colorful gesture involving knives or guns or bayonets, which is accompanied a bizarre sound that presumably comes out of his mouth. It sounds like the distress calls of a hoarse caribou who clicks his tongue…but who really knows what that sounds like?

And nobody talks for a minute.

"So, this is really what we're going to do? Shoot the breeze about suicide and all of our favorite things?" Wilson kicks himself for the unintentional Sound Of Music reference. "This is what we're gonna do while we're locked in a pitch black janitor's closet with no food, no water, and no phones?" Wilson has never thought of 45 minutes as a particularly long time…until now.

House shifts next to the trash can and rubs his leg absently. "Depends. What'd you have in mind when you got us locked in here?"

In the dark, Foreman swears he can see steam burst out of Wilson's ears.

"I'm sorry! For the last time, I'm sorry! I didn't know the glue was the only thing keeping the door open. I didn't know ours deaths would by my hand."

A few seconds later, he revises, "or my foot." He chuckles bitterly.

"And people think _I'm_ the cynical one. Relax, Wilson. We'll get out of here."

Wilson shakes his head, letting a smile escape. He's forgotten the last time he let go like that, but it felt good. Great, liberating, verbal sex, that's what it was. Now he wants a cigarette.

"I know," he says. "I know." He loosens his tie and allows himself to slouch down a little. "So House, what's your favorite movie?"

"Pay It Forward."

"What?" And nobody can identify who just spoke, as everyone said the same thing.

"Kidding."

There are three annoyed sighs next to House.

"It's uh, actually Groundhog Day, he says."

Foreman's the first to ask, "Why?"

"Because," replies Wilson in House's stead, "the main character has to accept things the way they are before he can change them, a feat House has mastered gracefully…without the grace, or the Jesus-like rebirth."

House puffs out his cheeks thoughtfully. "Actually, I just think it's funny that Bill Murray kept waking up to Sonny and Cher singing 'I Got You Babe."'

Chase casually sticks his hand in his pocket as he listens, then removes it, quite distraught, if one can be over a pocket. "Uh, guys?"

"What?" says…one of them.

"Wait, uh, you promise not to be mad?"

House and Foreman don't reply. For them the request is about as ridiculous as promising to dress like a fruit bat for the rest of the year.

"Yes," says Wilson, "we _all_ promise we won't get mad."

"I…sort of just realized I still have my penlight in my pocket. I forgot, sorry."

"That's great!" says Wilson with enough enthusiasm that he comes off angry.

"Yes. Yes it is," says House.

Chase knows what's coming next.

"And it would've been even greater had you remembered this fact earlier!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't even—hey, what are you doing?"

Chase slaps away Foreman's wrist, which is in pursuit of said penlight uncomfortably close to Chase's pants.

"Getting the light."

"Here," says Chase, who quickly flings the penlight out of his pocket and in Foreman's direction. "Now what are you doing?"

"Reading." Foreman uncrumples a balled-up piece up paper that also happens to be folded in half, and turns on the penlight, making everyone else feel like ill-equipped spelunkers.

"_What_ exactly are you reading," says Wilson, his voice rising with his stress level.

"I tell you after I'm finished."

Wilson lunges for the paper for the second time that day as Foreman turns off the penlight, plunging the closet into darkness once again. House scoots closer to the trashcan as the sounds of grown men rolling around in three year-old Pine-Sol bounce throughout the room. Chase laughs until he too ends up in the scrap. Fifteen seconds go by before a long-winded "OW" fills up the room. House guesses it's Wilson based on the sheer wussiness of the victim's tone, if such a thing can be measured. The penlight rolls to House's feet, and he picks it up, trying to find the switch.

"Crap, you okay?" Foreman's voice. House needs to get that light on. He's missing valuable Wilson-suffering.

"No, I hurt my—psych!"

House flips the light on in time to see Wilson swipe the paper out of Foreman's guiltily limp hands. Foreman gives up with a scowl and scurries back to his original position to catch his breath, and perhaps prepare to battle again. House, however, scoots closer to Wilson.

"Aww man," he says, indicating Wilson's Pine-Soled shirt. "That's definitely gonna leave a stain."

"What is?" Wilson looks down and searches fervently for the stain. House easily swipes the paper from his hands and flicks on the penlight.

"Hey!" Wilson's arm flail impatiently like the middle child he once was. "That's…personal."

House's eyes dance across the crumbled sheet of stationary like a rabbit testing his luck on the highway.

The note says:

_Lisa,_

_We'll meet at the same place tonight, now that we're sure about this .I want to show you a nice house I saw yesterday while I was getting food for Hector. House still has no idea, and I'd like to keep it that way if it's even possible. I'm still not sure how he'll handle it. _

_Can't wait,_

_James_

House stares at the paper for a minute, reading it just a few times more. "Well," he says, turning off the penlight once more, "at least you didn't sign it 'xoxoxo.'"


	3. Wilson's Worst Date

**Chapter Three: Wilson's Worst Date**

"What do you mean it doesn't mean anything?!"

House is standing now, out of anger that isn't really anger, and exasperation that gives him more entertainment than grief.

"I mean," says Wilson, who stands as well, staring at nothing in particular through the dark, "the note doesn't _mean_ anything. It's a note. Nothing happened. Nothing's _going_ to happen."

"'It's a note.' Well yes, that just _completely_ restores my confidence in you. You and Lisa the…hooker? Secretary? Maid?" House smiles. "Hospital administrator?"

Wilson nods, "Yeah."

House elbows Foreman (maybe Chase) in the ribs playfully. "Ooh, all of the above. Wilson, you sly dog."

Wilson tilts his head and frowns like a strict mother of the '60s. "It's Cuddy, and it's not what you think."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?"

"Because your mind only functions for one subject other than diagnostic medicine, and even then the other subject gets in the way."

"What can I say—rare, life-threatening diseases are sexy. So is Cuddy, to you, obviously."

"No she's not!" Wilson splutters, running a hand through his hair. "I-I mean, yeah she is, uh, attractive, b-but I've never—that's not to say, uh—"

"You called her 'Lisa'. Nobody calls Cuddy 'Lisa'. I'm not even sure she knows it's her name."

"House, that's why I threw the note away. I made a lot of mistakes on this copy." Wilson snags the paper from House's hands and throws it away…again.

"Wow, now I've forgotten what the note says. It's as if it never existed in the first place!"

Chase scoots closer to Foreman. "What d'you say we look for more light bulbs before House starts using his cane as a bo staff?" he whispers.

House taps his cane against the floor audibly, daring Wilson to follow the noise a bit closer. "And who the Hell messes up an entire name? It's not like you meant to write 'Brian' and wrote 'Brain.' Writing 'Lisa' was a choice, just like using a note instead of email, just like using floral stationary."

Foreman puts his face somewhere close to where Chase's ear might be, and murmurs, "Okay, let's find the light bulbs."

Wilson laughs maniacally, a sound the others wouldn't mind never hearing again. "You, you think that because I didn't email it, and I used stationary—that it somehow means I'm in love with her? House, I know you know her email password. No way in Hell would I email it! And the floral stationary was because all the other stationary pads I have are from hospitals. What would you rather me use, 'St. Jude's Children's Hospital—we be illin'? House…nothing is going on between Cuddy and me."

"So, you're saying you simply made a lot of 'mistakes' on this copy, that just _happened_ to imply that you and Cuddy have a secret romance serious enough to be house-hunting? That it's not 'Oops, I'm boning my boss?'"

"Yes! And we're not buying a house. I didn't even mean to write 'house.'"

House stops tapping his cane and smiles. He wishes he could see Wilson's expression as he speaks. "You were thinking about me."

Wilson lets his shoulders rise into their normal posture as a smile passes his lips as well. "Yes House, I was just thinking how nice your scratchy face would feel against my lips."

Foreman stops short of the light bulbs (the position of which he's completely oblivious to). "Do you two…always talk about stuff like this?"

"Oh not it's not just talk." House wishes someone could see his wink in the dark. "Jimbo and I follow through."

Chase slaps a hand to his face. "Too far." However, he's still smiling.

Wilson points to House and leaves his other hand on his hip. "Are we…going to address how jealous you just were?"

House mocks the position he assumes Wilson is taking, winding up with his legs spread as wide as his thigh allows and his hands perched on his hips. The fact that he gets this close to being right is oddly disheartening. "Are you…going to tell me why you thought of me while writing this if it's _not _because you're boning our boss?"

"Ah, so you _are_ jealous!"

"Ah, so you _are_ evading the question."

"Ah, so are you."

"Ah, you're running out of things to say, Wilson."

"It'd seem that way, wouldn't it?"

"Found them!"

This last voice doesn't belong to House or Wilson, nor does it come from the ground. House grabs the penlight from out of his pocket and shines it up.

"Ow!" says the voice, which is now clearly coming from Foreman's mouth. "Get that out of my eyes!"

House lets the light linger for a moment before letting it drop a few inches below Foreman's nose. "Sorry, just trying to identify the strange being who lurks on high shelves in janitor's closets. I'd heard rumors it existed, but…"

"I was looking for light bulbs so you don't kill us in the dark."

"Technically, I can aim better in the light."

"Great," says Chase, "so now you'll be happy."

"I was happier in the dark…if you know what I mean."

He's answered by three long sighs.

Foreman grabs a light bulb and leans to the other side of the footstool he's balancing on. "Hey House, can you hand that penlight to Chase?"

"Why, don't you trust me?"

"No."

Wilson reaches a hand in the direction of House's voice. "Here, give it to me. You want me to point it at the old light bulb?"

Foreman meanders around syllables for a bit, stopping somewhere in between "Um" and "Actually…"

Wilson puts his other hand on his hip, now unconsciously in sync with House. "You don't trust me either? It's a light Foreman, I'm not going to shoot laser beams out of the tip."

"You just tackled me!"

"I had a good reason."

House eases himself down to the ground with a wince. Being in the dark did have its perks.

"Speaking of which," says Chase, pulling the penlight from Wilson's angry grip, "when you stole the note back from Foreman…did you say 'psych'?"

Wilson tugs nervously at his tie while he frowns in concentration. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I did." He chuckles. "I guess I always wanted to say something like that, but never got the chance." He sits as well, his dimples slowly emerging from his cheeks as he smiles. This is as badass as Wilson's going to get.

"Okay, hold it a little to the left."

Chase obeys Foreman's order while House and Wilson gaze on from below. "So I guess this answers the question of how many doctors it takes to change a light bulb," says House.

"Four," says Wilson, "Two to do it, and two to make this joke while they're doing it."

"So, you gonna tell me why you 'accidently' put my name on your love note?"

"I told you, it wasn't a love note." Wilson draws in his knees, trying to keep the Pine-Sol off his last square inch of pant leg. "It was a birthday note."

"Cuddy's birthday isn't until—"

"For you."

House stops and squints. "Yes, nothing cleverer than sending a birthday card to somebody who's not having a birthday."

"Every time we plan _anything _for your birthday. You always find us out before we get a chance to celebrate."

"What's to celebrate? I'm another year closer to dying." He tilts his head. "Okay, I can see a need of celebration there."

"So this year," says Wilson, folding his arms and sitting up, "we decided to write notes so we wouldn't get caught. As you can see it's been a huge success."

Suddenly, House can see the sarcasm as well as hear it.

"And let there be light." Chase turns off the penlight just as Foreman starts descending the footstool. Chase puts the penlight in his pocket, and sits down next to the door, which for the first time in a long time, he can see.

Foreman kicks the footstool aside and sits down as well. They all blink repeatedly, getting used to the light once again, remembering how to use their briefly forgotten sense.

"AH!" yelps House.

The rest look up anxiously. "What?"

"Nothing, just forgot how ugly you all are. Except Chase, of course." He casts a wink in Chase's direction, coming to the conclusion that making others uncomfortable is significantly easier in the light.

"Well," says House, "now that that crisis is averted, Wilson has something to say."

"I do?"

"What did you mean to put instead of 'house'?"

Wilson slaps a hand to the back of his neck nervously. "I…it's a surprise."

"Well then, I doubt you'll mind me '_surprising' _my fellows with some more secrets from the drunken mind of Dr. Wilson…"

"Wait!"

House smiles. Wilson doesn't.

Wilson waves a truce with his hands. "Okay, okay. Um, it's not what it sounds like. Well, it is, but not in the sense that—"

"Just tell me what it is!"

"I meant to put 'cage.'"

"Cage?"

"Yeah, cage."

"Nicolas Cage or creepy, bondage, 'let me feed you dog food' kind of cage?"

"I'm…gonna have to say neither," says Wilson. "It's a surprise, House, so there needs to be just a _little_ bit of surprise."

House shakes his head. "Well frankly, I'm a little disappointed. I thought you knew everything about bondage…"

"Don't, House."

"Well, almost everything."

"House."

"Apparently not enough to use a safe word."

Wilson throws his arms up as shows the ceiling his bitterly complacent grin. "Why? Why now, House? After I just told you—"

"The funny thing is," House interrupts, "you could've gotten away clean had you not reacted so…guiltily over my exposing your bondage injury."

Foreman raises an eyebrow as he sinks Wilson's confidence. "He's got a point."

Chase, however, seems to struggle in connecting Wilson to bondage in any way, shape, or form. "You got hurt…from bondage?"

House rings in with a grin as he scoots closer to Chase and Foreman. "Two broken ribs."

"House, will you shut up?!"

"Can't now, Wilson. They're expecting the story: Wilson's worst date."

Wilson looks over the faces of Foreman and Chase, who do, in fact, seem to be waiting for a good fleshing-out of "his worst date." He sighs and scratches his head. Then he waits, listening for any signs of life outside the closet and momentarily forgets that it'd be a good thing rather than a mortifying thing.

"This doesn't leave this closet," he says.

Nobody even thinks of interrupting him.

"It was my sophomore year at McGill. My girlfriend and I had been going out for over a year, so we were…you know, experimenting. So one day—Argh, I can't believe I'm telling you this!"

"Just finish the damn story!" says House.

"One day she sneaks into my dorm with about ten feet of rope."

"Oh God," groans Foreman.

"You still lived in the dorms?" says House.

"Yeah, lots of people stayed a few years. Anyways, it was Thanksgiving, so my roommate was visiting his family, and it was snowing, so nobody was going to pop in for an unexpected visit. We…had the dorm all to ourselves. So she starts tying me up, and things get a little heated…"

"Wait, wait," says Chase, eyeing Wilson carefully. "She tied _you_ up? As in, Wilson: the oncologist who's worn a pocket protector since age 7?"

"Well, I didn't wear a pocket protector that night."

The three other guys let loose some encouraging whistles.

"I was…young, I was—"

"Horny?" adds House.

"…Yeah." Wilson laughs nervously. "So I was tied up from my knees to my shoulders, and then she starts getting in on it…All of the sudden I hear a key at my door. Needless to say, I freak out, try to make a break for it. Only problem is now we're tied together. So I go to my left and she goes forward, we end up spinning off the bed just as my roommate walks in saying that his flight was cancelled because of the snow! We had to lie there, naked, with concussions and a collection of other injuries while my roommate called for an ambulance."

Wilson finds himself talking louder and louder over the laughter.

"The ER called my parents, and uh, told them what happened."

Chase buries his face in his palm as he shakes with laughter. He lifts his head up, gasping, "What'd your girlfriend do after that?'

"We…stopped seeing each other."

Wilson wishes the lights were off again.

So does House, who closes his eyes and leans his head against the trashcan when the laughter finally subsides.

Nobody talks for a minute, willing the mental image of Wilson tied up like some overzealous snake charmer out of their heads.

Every so often, Chase still cracks a smile.

Wilson scoots closer to House as inconspicuously as is possible in a cramped closet with two other people staring at you. He doesn't quite look House in the eye, as doing so would be expecting House to do the same. Instead, he asks the broom handle about three inches above House's head, "Are you okay?"

"Fine." House speaks automatically, as if he possesses the same skills in precognition for this question as Wilson possesses in knowing when his food will be stolen.

Wilson leans up against the shelf behind him. This time, they match each other intentionally. "Your phone wasn't the only thing you left in your jacket, was it?"

House shakes his head, keeping his eyes closed.

Wilson eyes Chase and Foreman with something resembling resentment. And though it isn't, he can't shake the feeling that they should know by now not to look at House like that. House can sense pity like a shark to blood.

"When was your last pill?" Wilson asks, reminding himself to look away from Chase and Foreman.

House shrugs. "Two and a half or three hours ago. I'll be fine."

The 'I'll be' as opposed to 'I am' throws Wilson off. He nods, knowing that House probably knows he's nodding. He adds, "Lunch is almost over."

House opens his eyes and pretends that three other pairs of eyes aren't glued to him. He smiles. It's slight, and if it hadn't been pointed out, you never would've noticed—at least, if you're not Wilson.

"What?" asks Wilson, returning the same, sort of crazed, half-smile.

"Did I ever tell you about _my_ worst date?"


	4. The Story Time Drowning

**Chapter Four: The Story Time Drowning**

"It was our first date."

House perks his head up from the trashcan while his eyes melt the wall behind Wilson's head with the look he often gets while solving a case. "Well, technically it was our second date."

"You and…Stacy?" Wilson hesitates, as if her name is some horrible curse word only to be used by its inventor.

House nods, closing his eyes as his leg reminds how far gone his first date really is. He tries to let go, to allow himself to drown in the past, but it's nowhere near that easy. Drowning in cases is easy. Drowning in Vicodin is very easy.

And yet neither is readily available in the average janitor's closet. And painful as it is to admit, this is the average janitor's closet. Except for the trash, the note, and the people, that is.

But drowning isn't average, and his past isn't average. Combined, they especially aren't average. But somewhere between thinking about this and talking about this, an invisible wall gets breached. House doesn't know why he has this wall and others don't—just that it's there, just that it makes it harder to care about things other than Moebius Syndrome or Elephantiasis, and just that right now, he's getting dangerously close to breaking through the wall.

He opens his mouth. He stops thinking. He starts talking. And suddenly, the fire poker in his thigh seems almost as far away as, well, his first date.

"It was our first/second date."

"Wait." Foreman puts a hand up to stop him. "I thought you said this was your worst date."

"It is. But it was also my first/second date."

"So this was after she shot you in paintball?" says Wilson.

"Yes. First time that we met after that actually."

"So you call that paintball game your 'first date'?"

"…More like what happened _after_ the paintball game."

Chase eyes pop with excitement or shock or scorn (or all of the above). "You had—"

"Dinner at Macaroni Grill. _Then_ fantastic sex."

Everyone leans in a little to listen.

"So by our 'second date,' she was moving here from New York, asked me if I'd come up and help her move the rest of her stuff, and I said sure, so—"

Wilson sticks his hand up. "Wait, you just went? No questions asked?"

"Well I made sure her bed hadn't been moved yet."

Wilson nods as if to say, "good for you."

House nods back and continues. "When I got there, everything was _mysteriously _packed. Except the bed, obviously. So there we were, with nothing to do except…"

"Each other," sighs Foreman. "We get it. Now can we move on to the humorously bad part of this date?"

House tilts his head. "I was going to say 'ice skate.' Get your head out of the gutter."

"_You_ went ice-skating?" says Wilson.

"Yeah," House admits, "at Rockefeller Center." His head is down, and yet he can't keep from smiling.

"Anyways, it was late, so pretty much everyone else had gone home. We skated for a few hours, making sure to get nice and cold so her bed would feel extra toasty by comparison. All was going well—"

"Until?" Foreman concludes with a shrug.

House's hand finds his thigh once more. He thinks nobody notices. "Will you stop interrupting me?"

This time, it's Chase that answers. "He will if you start getting to the good part."

"So embarrassing moment foreplay's not your thing?"

Wilson, Foreman, and Chase shake their heads. House still wishes it were dark.

"_Until _she slipped on the ice and I ran over her fingers with my skate."

A series of "Ooooh's" follow as the guys give House their versions of the sympathetic frown.

"And she kept seeing you?" says Chase. "You must be damn good in bed."

"You would know," whispers Foreman.

Wilson folds his arms and scoots back a little at the conclusion of this tale. "Still," he says, "that's not as bad as…you know, what happened to me."

House grins fiendishly. "Oh the story's not over. It gets worse."

Wilson scoots towards House once more as Chase says, "Worse?"

House nods and continues. "I helped her off the ice, sat her down on a bench so I could take her skates off. Blood everywhere," he adds. "But the damn skate was just a little too tight around the ankle, so I gave it a few good tugs, and the bottom of it wound up in my shoulder."

Another round of "Oooooh's" came from all directions as House pulled down his collar to reveal the four-inch, linear scar beneath his shoulder blade.

"You told me that was from getting mugged!" says Wilson, wide-eyed and flustered.

"_You're_ the one who believed me."

House straightens out his shirt with an innocent look while Wilson stares at House's shoulder with a politician's scrutiny.

House ignores his gaze and continues. "We ended up spending four hours in the ER waiting to get stitched up."

Wilson scratches his head while he laughs empathetically (if such a thing is possible). "Wow House, that…sucks." And he laughs again, this time devoid of empathy, pity, or anything heartfelt at all, because ice-skating injuries are funny that way.

House chuckles briefly. He looks down and squints, appearing more badass than perceptive. "Actually, all we did was talk. About, I dunno…ourselves. Where we grew up, and…" He trails off and looks down again when there's really no reason to continue. They've heard all they want to hear. He's said more than he wants to say. But for some reason, it'll never quite be enough to make things right again. Screw 19th century poets—words never change a damn thing.

Wilson waits for House eyes to meet his before he says, "So you're telling us you had your first/second/worst/best date all in one night."

"Jealous?" says House.

Everyone replies with their variant forms of "Yes." Except for Foreman, that is, who sits against the door shaking his head and laughing silently to himself. Now, such a thing often looks odd to people without proper context. It's on these grounds that Chase leans over and whispers, "Care to enlighten us on your special brand of humor?"

Foreman looks up to meet three pairs of suspicious eyes, eliminating any thoughts that this will be a quick explanation with, "I was trying to surprise my girlfriend one night."

"Let me guess," says House, "it was dark?"

Foreman nods, trying not to laugh as he elaborates. "So I snuck into her apartment a little after midnight. She's was asleep on the couch, probably after watching TV or something." He keeps shaking his head as some unseen earthquake of laughter rumbles beneath his sealed lips.

"Well this is the equivalent of seeing Mr. T cry, isn't it?" says House, his hand sinking to his leg.

Foreman composes himself and continues. "I got on the couch with her and we started making out. A minute later she was semi-conscious with her shirt off, and I had my pants off. All of the sudden, the light popped on in the living room and I heard, 'Eric!' I looked down, and that's when I realized that the girl I'd been making out with wasn't my girlfriend, but one of her friends who was spending the night."

This earns a round of applause from Chase, even a full-fledged grin from Wilson, who dares to ask, "So what happened then?"

Foreman retreats a little into his default expression, eyeing the floor like a tiger who's tasted blood. "I tried to explain, but obviously she didn't believe me. Actually," he says, a smile reappearing at the edges of his mouth, "I dated that friend after she dumped me, and we went out for a good six months. I never really tried to 'surprise' _her_, though."

Everyone sinks back after some final laughter, leaning on their respective backrests once again. They listen briefly for sounds of life outside, watching for changes of light through the cracks on the side of the door. Their silence finds a way to be comfortable, sparing them the awkwardness of thinking about what to say. If someone needs to talk, they'll talk, and if someone needs to listen, they'll listen. In the mean time, House, Wilson, Foreman, and Chase read the ingredients of cleaning solvents, and wait.

Wilson's pretty sure he can see House grow paler before his eyes, but he doesn't do anything—not directly at least. Wilson comes to the conclusion that watching House in pain is like watching otters at the zoo: as much as you want to get in the water and swim with them, their pool is always going to be a little too cold. Wilson then comes to the conclusion that convoluted zoologic metaphors are a Hell of a lot less useful than…anything else. It's back to story time.

Wilson turns to Chase, watching House out of the corner of his eye. "Hey Chase, you never told us about your worst date."

Chase starts and stops a few times. "Well, it's not really a date. I mean, it was, but it was more like my worst Christmas." He scratches his head in a rare display of nervousness. "It's not really funny either."

Wilson shrugs, giving him one of those supportive half-smiles that only an oncologist could perfect. "Like you said, there's nothing better to do."

Chase shrugs back and clears his throat. "It was at Formal, or I guess you'd call it Winter Prom or Winter Formal. Anyways it was the week before Christmas, and I'd been waiting all Summer for it, even rented my tuxedo early. Uh, Christmas is in the summer in the southern hemisphere," he adds for the benefit of Foreman's puzzled look

Foreman proceeds to act as though he'd never forgotten that small detail.

"So my dad dropped me off at the dance with my date, Susan Frollis, the most beautiful girl in New South Wales. He was on his way to work, said my mother would pick us up after the dance."

House takes his head off the trashcan while he makes eye contact with something other than his own eyelids for a change. He listens to Chase—still pale, but now distracted—indeed a devious plan. "You had your _dad_ drop you off for a date? Well duh, that'd ruin anyone's Christmas."

"I was 17 and I couldn't afford a car."

"Daddy could."

"'Daddy' didn't feel like spending heaps of cash on something I was liable to wreck within six months."

House scoots forward with a wince. "This introspective self-doubt isn't like you, Chase. Do we need to talk?"

"What happened at the dance?" asks Foreman, avoiding the eyes of House or Wilson.

"We…danced. I mean, it went great. They played good music, my friends kept their distance, she even gave me a kiss during one of the slow songs. After the dance was over, we went outside to wait for my mum, and uh, all the others kids were leaving or getting rides or something, but not us. Neither of us had a mobile to call anyone, so we waited, still expecting that Mum was just stuck in traffic or something." He sighs, allowing all the alternate scenarios to rush about his head. "We sat on the steps of my school for an hour, and we didn't even talk. I was nervous, embarrassed as Hell. She was…I dunno, probably frustrated and bored. This squad car pulled up, and a police officer stepped out, introduced himself as Officer Bremmer or Bremman, something like that. He said my mother was arrested for drunk driving and that she was being held at the Garden Island jail. He, uh, offered to drive us home, so we got in the back of his car. We didn't talk there either. We dropped Susan off at her house, and I said, 'Sorry.' She said, 'Don't be.'"

Chase laughs briefly and genuinely. "That was the last time I ever saw her, but she did give me another kiss.

"Dad didn't bail Mum out. He let her stay in there for three days. By the time Christmas came around, nobody felt like celebrating. We ate in separate rooms, picked up our present and opened it alone. We were strangers, but it still felt like hating your own arm or something, and none of us could chop it off. Except my father, but then he was a surgeon. He paid my mother's fines and left."

It doesn't take long for this most recent silence to become uncomfortable. Foreman wants to say he's sorry. Wilson wants to say he understands. But the words get stuck somewhere on the tongues of their owners, like adhesive rat traps. House's mouth is the only one that seems capable of delivering verbiage with coherency, which would be downright frightening, most of the time.

"What did he give you for Christmas?"

Chase looks up as if admiring the sound of another voice. "My dad?"

House nods, leaning his head against the trashcan once more.

"He gave me his old stethoscope with a note that said 'Listen to your heart.'"

"And here I thought he'd give you something manipulative," says House.

Chase shrugs and smiles half-heartedly, hoping someone else will talk.

Wilson sticks his hands in his pocket and comes up with a pill. He leans over to House and brandishes the small orange capsule. "Motrin? I mean, I realize it's like giving a band-aid to a shark attack victim, but—"

House swipes it and swallows, waiting for a pitiful version of the placebo effect to kick in. It doesn't.

Wilson watches Chase frenziedly straighten out his shirt and pants. "So the next Christmas," he says, "it was just you and your mom?"

Chase nods. "And after that, I left, too."

Wilson narrows his eyes. "The first Christmas is always the worst."

Chase and Wilson make that supposedly meaningful eye contact experienced by two soldiers in battle, or two Titanic survivors, or two Jeep owners. It's the "I've been there" concept that wants to lump everyone into the same boat.

Chase relaxes his shoulders once he realizes the spotlight has finally been moved elsewhere. "So let's hear about your worst Christmas then, Dr. Wilson."

Wilson shakes his head. "Mine's not funny either. We'll die of boredom before we die of starvation."

House sits up. "However, as you can tell from that particular joke, Dr. Wilson's understanding of humor is a bit…off. His story's probably hilarious."

"It's not, House." He looks over to Foreman and Chase, looking for an out. "I-It's not even a story, it's just how I felt that first Christmas after he…" Wilson looks down and swallows. His head continues to shake, answering the question of what a bobble head doll would sound like if it possessed the ability to speak.

"Your brother?"

Wilson looks up to see the tale end of a concerned look from House, who is now looking at nothing in particular over Wilson's head.

"Yeah," says Wilson, "his name, uh, was Eddie. I mean, Edward. He was—is a few years older than me, but he was still Mom's baby I guess. He—"

From under the crack of the door come the pained squeals of wheels on tile. Their whines are quickly followed by the unavoidable _squish_ of new sneakers and the buzz of pant leg against pant leg in between steps.

Inside the closet, everyone freezes.

Seconds pass, and the noises grow louder. The smiles on our castaways' faces grow goofier. Chase is the first to raise his arm to knock.

"Wait," whispers House.

"What for, someone's right outside!"

House swallows a wave of pain, regretting this decision before he makes it. He shakes his head and looks at Wilson.

"Let Wilson finish his story first."


	5. Taking Out The Trash

**Chapter 5: Taking Out the Trash**

Wilson stretches his legs out and shifts his weight onto his palms. To his left, a stomach growls, but nobody laughs. Nobody even blinks. Nobody does anything, except listen.

He clears his throat anxiously, even considers faking a coughing fit to stall a little. But nobody would excuse him, and nobody would mind waiting 30 seconds, because everyone loves the kind of story that makes them feel those 15 minutes of superiority. Wilson loosens his tie and opens his mouth.

"Eddie and I were picking up our younger brother, Matthew, from school. I sat with Matt in the back; Eddie drove. We were almost home when this car ran a red light in front of us. Eddie tried to stop, but it was too late, so we uh, side-swiped the other car."

Wilson squints and scratches his head, as if he can't quite recall what happened next (or doesn't want to). "We—we were all fine. I mean, some bruises here or there, but nothing too bad. The other driver, though…he was killed on impact." He swallows. The words strangle his tongue like little hostile aliens, and yet he can't easily let them go. "Eddie, h-he couldn't seem to get past the fact that someone was dead because of him. I mean, I think he knew it wasn't 'his fault,' but there was some sort of complex he had going, where if he hadn't been there, the guy would be alive. And we told him it was stupid, that the guy was probably drunk or just some idiot who had death coming to him, but it only made things worse. He kept telling me, 'Jim, you would've stopped. You know when to stop.' He didn't want to be in a place where he couldn't control things like that. And he didn't want to be in a place where all he could do was ask 'what if.' One night, late that summer, he went to go spend the night at his buddy's house, and he never came back. He started living on the streets, like just another bum. I used to go out looking for him late at night." Wilson laughs bitterly. "God, it's a wonder I wasn't mugged."

Chase looks down before asking, "Did you ever find him?"

"Yeah, just once. At first I didn't recognize him," says Wilson. "but he was the one who spoke first. He, uh, told me he loved me. Mom, Dad, and Matt, too. Then I asked him when he'd be coming back, and he said, 'When I stop hating myself.' I guess he never did."

Wilson lets go of a breath he didn't know he was holding. He runs a hand through his hair before continuing. "By the time Christmas came around, we stopped caring about what would've happened that day had he not been there, because he wasn't there. I wish I could say it was like he'd never been there, but that Christmas was the worst because he was…everywhere. His stupid ornaments he made in Preschool, the Christmas card picture we'd taken at the Grand Canyon that spring, his goddamn stocking…he was like that piece of dog fur that always sticks to your dress shirts, and as hard as we tried to shake it off, we couldn't, because we missed him too damn much."

The roof of Wilson's mouth feels like tar against his tongue, and for a minute he thinks he might cry. He looks at the ceiling while his eyes burn, and he can't decide whether to blink repeatedly or not blink at all. He looks at the trashcan. A trashcan—evidence of what this place really is. It's certainly not some high-security confessional, though he's been treating it like one. It's a fucking janitor's closet. Where mice go to die and bacteria go to thrive, and everything else goes to be completely and utterly bored.

Suddenly the prickle at the corners of Wilson's eyes becomes a dull fizz, like forgotten soda in his tear ducts as he continues. "But I think the worst thing," he says, "was that Matt and I each got one more present. We each ate a little more at dinner. We each got to light the same amount of candles on the menorah. And we liked it. We liked not having to share. And I think it was because our whole family hated him a little that year. Not enough to mention it, probably not enough to know what was happening, but thinking back…" He puffs out his cheeks to think and for a second he looks like House. "Now we hate that we hated him. Hell, we hate each other for hating him. And I hate families because part of me hates them all for sitting there, for letting him go." Wilson's voice cracks. It's nothing too suspicious, but it's nothing that won't get by House, either. "I got excited when I started to hate myself," says Wilson. "I figured maybe I'd get to go be with Eddie."

When Wilson is finally able to look into the eyes of his listeners, he finds himself immediately mortified of the story he'd vocally chucked into the supply closet walls. Nobody knows what exactly to say or do or think, so everyone (even House) sits and stares like the failed experiments of Stepford. At James Wilson, of course.

"Shit," he says hastily, "I'm sorry guys. I-I didn't know it was gonna be, uh…" He looks desperately to House for an out, but House doesn't budge. "Don't, don't think that just because I went—"

"Since when do Jews get Christmas cards _and_ menorahs?"

Rarely has Wilson been this excited to hear that gravelly voice.

House continues, "So do you guys get birth months, too? Two bar mitzvahs, get a bat mitzvah free?"

It's not his best work, not by far, but it gets the job done, and for Wilson, that's all that matters.

Wilson smiles, gladly answering, "We were young. We felt left out, so Mom and Dad let us celebrate Christmas too."

"You were old enough to drive a car, I _think _you were old enough to choose tradition over commercialism."

"Since when do you care about religion?"

"Since they invented one that's also an ethnicity. That's just cool."

"Shalom, House."

"Cocka moon, Wilson." House smiles politely. "I means, 'I shit on top of you.'"

"Well, I appreciate the fact that I have _slightly_ more Christmas spirit than you do,"

House pauses, looking a little flustered. "Don't mention it," he says hazily.

Wilson narrows his eyes and scoots closer to House. "You okay?"

"Drowsy," he says, probably intending to include and 'I'm' in there somewhere.

Wilson's concerned eyebrows get pretty close to connecting at the middle as he says, "So take a nap. The janitor won't mind."

"Said I was drowsy, I didn't say I was tired."

Foreman and Chase shoot Wilson a look. Wilson shrugs. House blinks a few times, sifting through levels of focus like a gratuitously complex camera. He stares at nothing in particular on the ground, not quite exiting slow motion.

"House," says Wilson, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm…I don't know, but I'm okay. Keep going."

Wilson frowns. "Keep going with what? The story's over, House."

House nods quickly and continues staring perplexedly at the floor.

Chase straightens out his pants and looks to Wilson. "Can I ask you a question?"

Wilson says "sure" before he has time to stress over why Chase would ask that.

Chase says, "Why didn't you go back and look for him again?"

"Because Wilson didn't really want him to come home."

Wilson doesn't quite see House's lips move as he speaks, yet the problem with 'growling' your words is that one's voice is rather distinct. Wilson would've known who spoke in the dark. Somewhat unfortunately, it's no longer dark.

'What? Why would you say that?"

"It's true, isn't it?" House thickly coats his words with bitterness, for reasons Wilson's rather unsure of, and yet his eyes still watch the floor. "You found him once, you could've found him again, but you didn't, because you were done with him by then."

"That's not even close to being true, House." Wilson smiles uncomfortably, "surprised" not even approaching how taken aback he is.

"People…see people for a limited amount of reasons. With you, there's only one reason you would've gone looking for him just once. You gave him money. And you didn't know what he did with it and you didn't care because you could say you did your best. Your caring is unlimited so long as you don't have to stick around to see the aftermath."

It scares Wilson that House doesn't look up, that his words stream on, apparently without thought or consideration or effort. But House's words do take thought, and they do take knowledge, and they do take a sort of maliciousness that Wilson's never seen unprovoked by probing or stupidity. His words also take a sort of vulnerability that Wilson never expected to see in the presence of others.

"The aftermath is messy," House says. "The great James Wilson doesn't do messy."

"Look who I'm best friends with!"

"Because you still feel guilty. Not about me but about your brother, because when the world went to Hell, you were every bit the coward he was. You gave him the money and ran while he sat there dying."

"He's not dead."

"Well, you wouldn't know, would you?" House says loosely. He looks odd, like a drunk who's only minutes away from completely sobering up.

"What the Hell is wrong with you?"

"You're a better man than I am. Act like it."

Chase and Foreman feel like little kids, watching their parents fight and pinpoint every fault in the other, and still, this fight was more impassioned. These two people cared more about what the other had to say than the average married couple. These two were more honest, less weary. There's an aspect of excitement within the confines of the janitor's closet.

"This is your idea of fun? Unloading mass amounts of superiority on me while you tell me I'm a better man than you are?"

"And you are. I'm just not as quick to treat everyone as if they'd die without me."

"That's because you've never lost anyone, House!"

House mumbles something slackly to the floor. Wilson scoots closer. "What?"

House doesn't answer.

"What, House?"

House looks up, suddenly alert, his eyes glazed over for one reason or another. "Yes, I have."

House eyes Chase and Foreman suspiciously before coming to some internal reassurance that they weren't Cameron. That they wouldn't care…that much. At least, that's what it looks like as he nods truth into his words. Wilson is left staring at the top of House's head as he looks to the floor once again.

House's voice comes out tenser than before. Soon, he'll agonize over why he decided to do this. As for now, he has no idea.

"I had this uncle. His first name was Soble, which he hated, so everyone called him 'Elbos' because it was Soble spelled backwards. He was…everything my dad wasn't. He was loud, he was funny, he was smart. He rode a Harley Panhead, which at age 14 I thought was the coolest thing ever." House keeps his head down. His words come easier now, and Chase can see his shoulders starting to slouch down a bit. "We only lived about an hour away from him when Dad was stationed in Fredericksburg, so I hung out with him all the time. We watched movies, talked about girls, you know…"

House frowns at the tiles below, considering anything he's left out before continuing. "When I was 15 we got transferred to Albany, Georgia. I kept on trying to get back to visit him, but my father didn't want me around such an obviously negative influence. I only saw him during Christmas," he says spitefully. "So I saved up some money. A lot of money. And one summer, I flew back to see him without my parents knowing a thing. It was great…until he found out I didn't have my father's permission to be there. He said he was going to send me back first thing the next day."

House swallows uneasily. "We got in a fight. Or, I guess just I did. I, uh, yelled at him. Said I hated him for sending me back. I said…he was just like John. Which, of course, probably wasn't an insult to him. He knew he and his brother were from different planets. But he sent me back anyways, and that's when we stopped talking. A few months passed, I grew up. Slightly," he adds, as if sensing Foreman's critical eyes. "We didn't talk at all, but it was Christmas, and I knew that pretty soon, that '65 Harley Panhead would be in the driveway. He'd be tired from the long trip, but he'd still sit down and talk, and I could tell him exactly how different he was from Dad. Then I could tell him I didn't hate him."

House looks up, locking eyes so briefly with Wilson that neither of them really had time to analyze the other. "About 2AM we got a call from my grandmother. Someone hadn't seen him on the road, changed lanes into him. He bled to death on the road 20 miles from our house."

Wilson isn't sure why he was expecting House to cry, or tear up, or…something, but he isn't the only one who's disturbed by the matter-of-factness of House's delivery. Yet, in some backward way, the oddness of House's tale seems to fit the man. It probably suites Uncle Elbos just fine.

"You can't do nothing and expect things to change, Wilson. You'll only wish you did."

Chase and Foreman suspect that one day Cuddy, Cameron, or perhaps the odd clinic patient will know that Uncle Elbos existed, that he was a good man, that he changed at least one life…but they sure as Hell won't be the ones to tell them.

And neither will Wilson, who watches House not watch him and realizes that his problem is the only one that can be fixed. Words can't bring back the dead, and memories can't make bad dates good, and lives can't _really_ be changed on the floor of a janitor's closet. Yet it's amazing how far one dab of glue goes.

Wilson's ready to go now.

House sits up rather abruptly and leans over to Wilson. "Got any more Motrin?"

"No," says Wilson before House can truly finish his question.

"Empty your pockets."

"Why? What's the matter?"

"My leg doesn't hurt."

Wilson stutters, trying his best to smile. "T-that's good. I mean, I imagine your story distracted you—"

"Yeah, stories are like that, aren't they? I mean, I always feel like I'm on a more potent narcotic when I tell 'Little Red Riding Hood.' Empty your pockets or tell me what you gave me."

Wilson freezes, not daring to stick his hands in his pockets.

House gets closer, his smile gaining confidence and approaching smugness. "There's not that many I could've mistaken for Motrin, even if you covered the name. Tylox or Darvocet?"

Wilson shakes his head wearily, reaching into his breast pocket and revealing two small orange pills. House takes them, smile overtaking the lower part of his face. "Darvocet, 100mg. I'm impressed. Am I funnier when I'm high?"

On waves his hands around frantically. "I didn't know you've never had it! I assumed nothing short of heroine could get you buzzed."

"Hey man, I appreciate it. Maybe I'll switch over, chase the dragon, dude."

Wilson raises an eyebrow.

Meanwhile, a suspicious pair of heels slap against the ground in the hallway. Nobody takes notice under the current circumstances.

"Of course," says House, "now you need to tell me why you had them. Or better yet, why you thought it necessary to lock us all in the janitor's closet."

Chase stands up. "You did this on purpose?"

"That's why he didn't think knocking would be 'useful,'" says House.

And Wilson stands up, glancing apologetically at Foreman and Chase. "I-I didn't know you two would be in here. I thought it'd just be House, and I only had the pills as a precaution, just in case House lost his Vicodin or—"

"Just in case you wanted to get stoned with me?" asks House, who also stands up.

Foreman remains on the ground, back resting as always on the door. "Somebody, preferably you," he says, pointing to Wilson, "please explain this from the beginni—"

Foreman spills backwards into the hallway as the door opens. To him, Lisa Cuddy is upside down.

She smiles genuinely and says, "Happy Birthday, House!"

She opens the door a little wider, allowing Foreman to roll out of the way. There, by the heels of her impractical shoes, is a white rat in an absurdly elaborate plastic cage.

"The cage?" says House.

"Call him Nicolas Cage," says Wilson, whose tone become accusing as his eyes meet Cuddy's. "What took you so long?"

Cuddy's voice seems equally frazzled. "I couldn't find an albino male. I don't even know why you told me to get one. Their eyes give me the creeps." She looks at Nicolas Cage and shudders. "I must've called you ten times, Wilson."

"And how do you think House would've reacted once he found out I had my cell phone?"

"A text then?"

Wilson sighs. "Why didn't you just get a girl albino then?"

Cuddy motions towards House. "You know he's going to put this one in the same cage as his sewer rat."

"Steve McQueen," object House and Wilson simultaneously, both somewhat hurt to hear Steve referred to in such a manner.

Cuddy shrugs and continues, "I didn't want them to…you know."

"Rodent porn," whispers House, "kinky."

Chase holds back a laugh.

Foreman joins the others in standing. "What is this all about?"

Wilson and Cuddy glance at each other, mentally assuming different roles in this story.

Wilson starts.

"We know that House takes more of a fancy to Steve than he'd like to admit," he says, glaring at House. "But Steve spends most of his time alone, doesn't get much attention with House being gone or passed out on the couch most of the time…"

"So we thought we'd get him a play mate," Cuddy finishes. "And we knew House'd never turn down the chance of owning two of the same disgusting animal."

Chase straightens his shirt, still failing to look like he _hadn't_ just spent an hour in a janitor's closet. "But what does that have to do with—"

"We could never get away with this under normal circumstances," says Wilson, "so we figured we'd send House on a…different path."

Slowly, a smile forms on House's face.

Wilson gestures towards the trashcan. "Cuddy found out the janitor was pulling this stunt even before House did, because regardless of their need to gamble, the other janitors _did not_ keep their mouths shut. So I wrote her a series of letters to hide the plan from House. But then I realized that I could use the letters, too. I threw one away when I was sure he was looking, and I left the rest up to House being House."

Cuddy steps in to take credit for her part. "House's patient was stable, and I didn't fire the janitor. All we had to do was wait. The plan was to lock him in the janitor's closet, just so he couldn't pull anything or find us out while I was out getting the rat. We didn't mean for Wilson to actually get locked in. Or you two, obviously."

Foreman and Chase stare at Wilson and Cuddy for slightly longer than is typically acceptable, before Chase says, "It's okay, Dr. Cuddy." He's not lying.

Wilson and Cuddy exchange a somewhat subtle handshake before Cuddy steps back, allowing the closet patrons freedom. She eyes a mysterious hole in the back of Wilson's pants, the kind that allows the world a preview of his Daffy Duck boxers. "Wilson," she starts, but is quieted by House, who puts a finger to his mouth and holds a pair of scissors with his other hand. "…thank you for your help. Enjoy the rat, House," she says with a wink, and leaves. In the free air of the hallway, her shoes are atrociously loud. To the four doctors, it sounds beautiful.

Chase, Foreman, Wilson, and House file into the hallway. House leans on his cane while Wilson picks up Nicolas Cage. They walk back towards House's office.

"You know what's funny?" says Wilson, examining Nicolas' 'creepy' red eyes.

House stops. "Uh-oh."

"I think you had it figured out the moment you felt drowsy. I mean, no way a man with such experience as yours in the consumption of narcotics can take that long to 'suddenly' realize he's not on Motrin." He puts Nicolas' cage on the floor so he can move his hands to his hips. "You wanted to tell that story, House."

"Maybe I just wanted to hear yours."

Wilson gives House a wise smile, and picks up the cage. Chase and Foreman are a few steps in front of them. Chase grabs the handle of House's conference room just as House tells them to wait.

"You guys haven't eaten lunch," is all he says.

He looks at Wilson, like a five year-old who's suddenly mute around strangers. Wilson says, "There's a Marie Calendar's around the street. I'll drive."

They leave Nicolas Cage in exam room one with a nametag that says Dr. Cage. They pass the janitor's closet on the way out, but nobody looks at it.

Wilson gets several confused stares in the lobby concerning the exposure of his Daffy Duck boxers. He's yet to notice, but that's okay.

There's some glue in the janitor's closet.


End file.
